The role of secondary features in serial dependence.

Abstract

Recent work indicates that visual features are processed in a serially dependent manner: The decision about a stimulus feature in the present is influenced by the features of stimuli seen in the past, leading to serial dependence. It remains unclear, however, under which conditions serial dependence is influenced by secondary features of the stimulus. Here, we investigate whether the color of a stimulus influences serial dependence in an orientation adjustment task. Observers viewed a sequence of oriented stimuli that randomly changed color (red or green) and reproduced the orientation of the last stimulus in the sequence. In addition, they had to either detect a certain color in the stimulus (Experiment 1) or discriminate the color of the stimulus (Experiment 2). We found that color does not influence serial dependence for orientation, and that observers were biased by previous orientations independently of changes or repetitions in the stimulus color. This occurred even when observers were explicitly asked to discriminate the stimuli based on their color. Together, our two experiments indicate that when the task involves a single elementary feature such as orientation, serial dependence is not modulated by changes in other features of the stimulus.